January 29, 2008
The '80s have been in for some time on the indie scene. Witness the neverending funeral march of Joy Division-cribbing neo-post-punkers.
Baltimore-based Celebration is no exception.
However, on Celebration’s sophomore album, "The Modern Tribe," it becomes clear that the band’s members are wiser than their angst-besodden peers.
While She Wants Revenge’s Justin Warfield attempts a humorless imitation of Ian Curtis’ loose groan (and should be shot for doing so), Celebration’s Katrina Ford, Sean Antanaitis and David Bergander instead synthesize and rework the better elements of alternative '80s music, for the most part creating a multifaceted sound, the stylistic borrowings of which never sound forced.
Take the opening track, the alternately lush and stark "Evergreen," which opens with a "Plainsong"-like crash of chimes that then drifts across tribal drumbeats and New Order-inflected hi-hat stabs.
Usually, any New Order tics come off as embarrassing, like tuneless American Idol contestants attempting to channel Streisand, but here they’re used so sparingly as to add only a jolt of tension.
The '80s underground keeps popping up throughout the album, namely in Celebration’s penchant for Cocteau Twins-like drift, which occasionally mires "The Modern Tribe" in bad songwriting choices.
The Twins were masters of dreamy pieces that floated with shoegazey airiness, but were also excellent at tight songwriting structure.
Celebration’s attempts at the same sublime, spiraling effect end up in a few patches of numbing repetition, especially since the calm of the Twins is now replaced by manic organ and drums.
Weak spots aside - "Pony," with its high-pitched monotone refrain, sounds like a basement tape experiment that shouldn’t have left the basement — "The Modern Tribe" carries a few stellar tracks. The rollicking stomp of "Fly the Fly" evokes the big, nasty sound of the Birthday Party, and "Hands off My Gold" carries the same nerviness with its skronking horns and creepy tenor vocals.
"Heartbreak," Celebration’s most popular song (and one of their most accessible) is a sweet, earnest, organ-driven ballad, tinted with just enough desperation and melancholy to ensure it a spot as an indie wedding march (as for the '80s influence here, check the "Come on Eileen" horns that burst in at the chorus).
The standout moment is undoubtedly the slinky groover "Pressure," with its ominous keyboard backdrop and danceable drumming. Best of all on the track are Ford’s wild vocals — in fact, Ford’s voice is the best part of the entire album.
Compared to everyone from Nick Cave to Siouxsie Sioux, Ford is a terrifying vocal force to behold, morphing from sweet delicacy to a gender-bending lower register and back again; every one of her octaves is backed by preternatural power. If God sings, Ford’s voice seems a pretty close approximation.
Sadly, Ford’s vocals are never showcased properly on "The Modern Tribe," shunted under the drums and muffled by the manic instrumentation. Hopefully, Celebration’s future works will bring Ford to the forefront, allowing her to be recognized as one of rock’s most innovative female vocalists since Elizabeth Fraser.
"The Modern Tribe" is, overall, an uneven but worthwhile work: Celebration is still working out the kinks in its sound, but the sound it produces is at least an interesting one, born from the vestiges of a bygone musical era but never a shameless imitation.
